#OTD in 1838, abolitionist Frederick Douglass escaped enslavement in Baltimore. Douglass founded a newspaper in D.C., and was appointed to the legislative council which governed the District in 1871, though he resigned shortly after: https://t.co/zH8sliSOL0 #Blackhistory #OT…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Sep 3, 2022
Check out Eastman Water-Flex #48281 18" x 3/4" Electric Water Heater Installation Kit https://t.co/2UXd59fbqq #eBay via @eBay
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Sep 3, 2022
Check out Prym Bulk Safety Pins Gilt Plated Brass Size 0- Gold color - 10 gross box https://t.co/RLojN69252 #eBay via @eBay
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Sep 3, 2022
Happy Birthday to "architect of the Civil Rights Movement ” Charles Hamilton Houston, born #OTD in 1895. Houston transformed @howardlawschool into a legal powerhouse, pioneered the NAACP's legal strategy, and helped dismantle school segregation in D.C: https://t.co/E1koJp8TWI …
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Sep 3, 2022
Today in History - September 3 https://t.co/9V1KZZLg4H On September 3, 1783, the Treaty of Paris was signed, bringing the Revolutionary War to its final conclusion. Continue reading. Frederick Douglass, abolitionist, journalist, author, and human rights advocate, made his…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Sep 3, 2022
Happy Friday! Here's picture of some bears at the @NationalZoo enjoying a performance by a jazz quintet, taken sometime during the 1920s. Photo courtesy of @librarycongress https://t.co/r09iqHm7Bg Happy Friday! Here's picture of some bears at the @NationalZoo enjoying a perf…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Sep 2, 2022
The Crater Farm via NASA https://t.co/3zwQ6dnKjW https://t.co/AsVxzZkBLz
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Sep 2, 2022
During #WWII the D.C. population exploded. The Defense Housing Registry processed 10,000 newcomers every month, but there simply wasn't enough housing to go around: in the early '40s, some 20,000 residents lived in alleyways: https://t.co/3IOlVCzCf7 During #WWII the D.C. pop…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Sep 2, 2022
Today in History - September 2 https://t.co/ugexstywqZ On September 2, 1885, a mob of white coal miners attacked their Chinese co-workers (both groups were employed by the Union Pacific Coal Company) in Rock Springs, Wyoming Territory, over a dispute on who had the right to …
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Sep 2, 2022
Read all about the 1835 fight between the states of #Ohio and #Michigan over the then fledgling town of Toledo in our latest blog post! #FridayReads Read the post here: https://t.co/0LdCEmDVf3 https://t.co/6vQB3K8qYt Read all about the 1835 fight between the states of #Ohio a…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Sep 2, 2022
Here are five standout pieces we read this week. You can always visit our editors’ picks or our Twitter feed to see what other recommendations you may have missed.
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Yessenia Funes | Atmos | August 31st, 2022 | 3,884 words
“The border crisis is bad now, but climate change will make it exponentially worse,” writes Yessenia Funes in this compassionate piece for Atmos. Extreme heat plays a major role in migrant deaths along the southern border of the U.S. In 2021, the bodies of 225 migrants were recovered from the Arizona desert, and this year, 126 have already been found. One third of these deaths are due to the harsh, dangerous environment. Funes joins a migrant rescue group that combs the desert for people who’ve gotten lost during their journeys. Mostly, though, they search for remains: “bodies, bones, and belongings.” While researchers have studied how climate change will influence migration patterns, they haven’t really measured how it will physically and mentally affect an individual — until now. Funes weaves this data into a very personal and reflective account. The photographs by Carlos Jaramillo, especially images of found items like black water jugs and camouflage backpacks scattered across the desert, are haunting. —CLR
Carl Elliott | The American Scholar | September 1st, 2022 | 5,463 words
It’s hard not to think of Oliver Sacks when you start reading this piece, thanks to its opening tale of a woman’s alarming reaction to the drug pramipexole. But Carl Elliott quickly delves beyond case-study voyeurism to plumb a litany of fascinating philosophical questions. When an impulse-control disorder changes a person’s personality dramatically, and seemingly irrevocably, how do we evaluate the resulting behavior? Are they responsible for their transgressions? Is it even them who’s transgressing? “The issues involved in these judgments raise profound questions about what exactly makes us who we are,” Elliott writes. “And those questions remain morally contentious even without identity-altering drugs.” Come for the “wait, they what?” moments, stay for the constellation of Wittgenstein thought experiments and Philip K. Dick references. —PR
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Courtney Shea | Toronto Life | August 29th, 2022 | 4,711 words
Michael Nguyen, once a tailor to the stars, is the founder of Longevity House, a club where the ultra-wealthy are dipping into high-tech ways to prolong their lives. There’s the BioCharger, which is a fancy device that fights chronic disease and brain fog; experimental fecal transplants; and access to specialists, from a chakra guy to a person who can read your stool samples like “physiological tea leaves.” For these biohackers, the goal is optimization and autonomy over one’s own health care. (Says the starry-eyed founder: “The patient is the doctor of the future.”) But does biohacking work, or is Nguyen just a wellness snake-oil salesman for the 1%? In this entertaining read, Courtney Shea, both with wide eyes and a necessary skepticism, gives us a glimpse into this subculture — think “Goop but for tech bros,” a wellness community where “cryotherapy is the new CrossFit,” and a world in which the body and mind are merely first-generation devices, primed for upgrades. Here, 90 is the new 50. —CLR
Jillian Steinhauer | The New Republic | August 22nd, 2022 | 3,974 words
I grew up in a small place where there wasn’t much to do except go to the mall. I can still navigate its corridors in my brain: Bath & Body Works was around the corner from Victoria’s Secret and just down the way from the GAP. When a new, bigger, splashier mall opened a two-hour drive from my town, a high school friend and I made a pilgrimage to shop there. After all, it boasted an Abercrombie. Needless to say, I ate up Jillian Steinhauer’s excellent essay about the history and future of the American mall, which doubles as a review of a new book about the topic, by architecture critic Alexandra Lange. Steinhauer considers why malls hold such an oversize place in the American cultural imagination. “Malls are not necessarily the communal spaces we would design for ourselves, but in a country short on alternatives, they’re the ones we’ve been given,” she writes. “Is it any surprise that we want them to be so much more?” —SD
Ed Simon | The Millions | August 24th, 2022 | 6,525 words
I spend a lot of time deliberating over words, so reading Ed Simon’s delightful essay on “when copy goes wrong” was a guilty pleasure. When Simon points out “Theodor Dreiser’s An American Tragedy describes a pair of lovers as being ‘like two small chips being tossed about on a rough but friendly sea,’” I was rooting for those star-crossed potatoes. A fan of a well-set table, I concurred “Blessed are the placemakers,” rather than “peacemakers” — as suggested in a 1562 printing of the Geneva Bible — and I chuckled that a few decades later, the “Wicked Bible” urged that you “shalt commit adultery.” There is a particularly joyful flaw in a 15th-century Croatian manuscript, where “splayed across the pages are the inky pawprints of the scribe’s cat” — the modern-day equivalent of your pet presenting its rear end in a Zoom meeting. After having his fun, Simon deftly moves on to the darker side of copy mistakes: In the U.S. Constitution, “commas are placed between nouns and verbs, errant commas in the Second Amendment make it unclear as to whether the right to bear arms is reserved for individuals or only ‘well regulated militias.’” Simon likes to make you think, and after dwelling on the potential damage of a wayward comma, he moves on to our very existence: Why did the Big Bang happen? It was probably just a mistake as well. —CW
Quote of the Day: "Between saying and doing, many a pair of shoes is worn out." - Iris Murdoch
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Sep 2, 2022
She was one of the first female government employees, was the first woman legally allowed on the battlefield in America, and she founded the American Red Cross. Clara Barton was an unstoppable force of the 19th century: https://t.co/mxoU8IQn34 #DChistory She was one of the f…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Sep 1, 2022
The correct answer is the Washington Bears, D.C.'s best basketball team that you've never heard of: https://t.co/BBRyvytOoC The correct answer is the Washington Bears, D.C.'s best basketball team that you've never heard of: https://t.co/BBRyvytOoC — Boundary Stones (@Bound…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Sep 1, 2022
Did you know that jousting — yes, knights galloping at each other on horseback — became the official sport of Maryland in 1962? https://t.co/WRDWsZ0sQR Did you know that jousting — yes, knights galloping at each other on horseback — became the official sport of Maryland in 1…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Sep 1, 2022
In 1968, nine Catholics, including priests Daniel and Philip Berrigan, entered a Selective Services office in the town of Catonsville, Maryland. They grabbed hundreds of draft files, took them out to the parking lot, and burned them with homemade napalm: https://t.co/ilvkYmiPzd…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Sep 1, 2022
Today in History - September 1 https://t.co/A5ujxzu6rk On September 1, 1773, Phillis Wheatley’s Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral was published in London, England. Wheatley’s collection was the first volume of poetry by an African-American poet to be published…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Sep 1, 2022
Quote of the Day: "Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change." - Confucius
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Sep 1, 2022
If you're currently scrolling Twitter on a fiberoptic connection — and if you aren't, you should upgrade 😉 — you can thank Alexander Graham Bell. His experiments at his L St. laboratory in D.C. played a critical role in developing the technology: https://t.co/2icDRbjNx3 If y…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Sep 1, 2022
Did you know that in the 1970s, the Italian mafia ran drugs out of a pizza shop on 14th St NW and even tried to murder an FBI informant, all just a few miles from the FBI headquarters? Surprise: they got caught: https://t.co/8lD2RccKt7 Did you know that in the 1970s, the Ita…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 31, 2022
Lacerta’s Star Outshines a Galaxy via NASA https://t.co/4BHiUKMCeX https://t.co/0wdsopA8J4
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 31, 2022
Thanks for the kind words, Donald! https://t.co/IN7VF3LVqG Thanks for the kind words, Donald! https://t.co/IN7VF3LVqG — Boundary Stones (@BoundaryStones) Aug 31, 2022
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 31, 2022
A survey of Manhattan Island, this is one of the first civilian aerial maps of a large city. Made by taking photos from a biplane, it was created on Aug 4, 1921, and assembled using 100 aerial photographs taken at an altitude of 10,000 feet! Zoom in here: …
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 31, 2022
The famous poet and fascist sympathizer Ezra Pound lived in D.C. from 1946-1958: Not in a Georgetown or Capitol Hill row home, but as a patient at St. Elizabeths Psychiatric Hospital in southeast D.C., following his arrest in Italy on charges of treason: https://t.co/940h1iLZJD…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 31, 2022
Today in History - August 31 https://t.co/loWBOX4n4z On August 31, 1897, Thomas Edison received a patent for the kinetographic camera, “a certain new and useful Improvement in Kinetoscopes,” the forerunner of the motion picture film projector. Continue reading. Click here t…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 31, 2022
During the Civil War, the U.S Capitol was turned into a barracks for Union Soldiers. After the Union Army's disastrous defeat in the Battle of Bull Run, it became a hospital for wounded soldiers: https://t.co/c4I2T1yLFd #civilwar During the Civil War, the U.S Capitol was tur…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 30, 2022
This incredibly detailed map of U.S. railroads at the dawn of the 20th century focuses on the Burlington Route. We can see major railway hubs upon a closer look. See the full map here: https://t.co/69Siofj9EF https://t.co/F6EKyiHayI This incredibly detailed map of U.S. railro…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 30, 2022
Read more about Stubby here: https://t.co/6FXTbU2D9A Read more about Stubby here: https://t.co/6FXTbU2D9A — Boundary Stones (@BoundaryStones) Aug 30, 2022
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 30, 2022
Stubby served with the American Expeditionary Force, once catching a German spy in an Allied trench. https://t.co/NbSOD7SNjZ Stubby served with the American Expeditionary Force, once catching a German spy in an Allied trench. https://t.co/NbSOD7SNjZ — Boundary Stones (@Bou…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 30, 2022
Meet Sgt. Stubby: hero of WWI, D.C. celebrity, and a certified Good Boy (photo courtesy of @librarycongress) #DCHistory https://t.co/MjM7y7FK2F Meet Sgt. Stubby: hero of WWI, D.C. celebrity, and a certified Good Boy (photo courtesy of @librarycongress) #DCHistory …
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 30, 2022
Did you know that the @NatSymphonyDC used to perform on a floating barge on the Potomac? From 1935-1965, Washingtonians could paddle their canoes right up to the barge on a warm summer night and "rock" out to some classical music. Photo courtesy of @dcpl https://t.co/OHB6jbah6x…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 30, 2022
A Peek Into Jupiter’s Inner Life via NASA https://t.co/mZron9dVdv https://t.co/WklZqiCPWa
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 30, 2022
Read more from Kelly here: https://t.co/XuzdTSb05R Read more from Kelly here: https://t.co/XuzdTSb05R — DC History Center (@DCHistory) Aug 30, 2022
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 30, 2022
If you read @JohnKelly's Saturday column, you might spy a familiar site on our upcoming tour with @WashingtonWalks! Join us Saturday, September 10 to learn more about the site, including the Apex Liquors that operated next door to the temperance fountain. …
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 30, 2022
NEW from Boundary Stones: Turkey Tayac fought his whole life for the rights and recognition of the Piscataway People. Sometimes, he won: in the 1950s, he defeated an effort to build high rise apartments on sacred Piscataway lands: https://t.co/QLUpSiA2DT NEW from Boundary St…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 30, 2022
Feel free to cite us while you do it! :) https://t.co/iUUNIgVUJ8 https://t.co/QpEgjgyj2T Feel free to cite us while you do it! :) https://t.co/iUUNIgVUJ8 https://t.co/QpEgjgyj2T — Boundary Stones (@BoundaryStones) Aug 30, 2022
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 30, 2022
And our next Sanborn Volume Finders are live, #WashingtonDC and #NewYorkCity! Check out all the cities available on the Sanborn Atlas Volume Finder map here: https://t.co/UKshulnvUY https://t.co/Ri9EmR5qaH And our next Sanborn Volume Finders are live, #WashingtonDC and #NewYo…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 30, 2022
Today in History - August 30 https://t.co/xH4dDbwEP0 On August 30, 1862, the Second Battle of Manassas ended a long campaign in northern Virginia. Continue reading. Click here to search Today in History for other historic moments.
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 30, 2022
Did you know that Thomas Edison fought for years for a government laboratory in Washington, D.C. dedicated to national defense? The funds were appropriated #OTD in 1916, but the @USNRL wasn't operational until 1923: https://t.co/Mv53C57mtB Did you know that Thomas Edison fou…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 29, 2022
In the fall of 1918, with WWI raging in Europe, a virulent killer touched down in D.C: The Spanish Flu: https://t.co/ykY8hme6EU In the fall of 1918, with WWI raging in Europe, a virulent killer touched down in D.C: The Spanish Flu: https://t.co/ykY8hme6EU — Boundary Stones…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 29, 2022
#OTD in 1940, a small group of British scientists boarded an ocean liner and left the country with the nation’s most sensitive military secrets. They were headed to Washington D.C., to enlist American help and try to turn the tide of WWII: https://t.co/JQz8B9rwQY #OTD in 194…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 29, 2022
Read more about the Navy's First African American Yeomanettes: https://t.co/OtHx1aoDTe #BlackHistory Read more about the Navy's First African American Yeomanettes: https://t.co/OtHx1aoDTe #BlackHistory — Boundary Stones (@BoundaryStones) Aug 29, 2022
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 29, 2022
John T. Risher, the African American chief of the Muster Roll division, selected talented black women to fill out his critically important unit, making them the first African American Yeomanettes in the Navy. Photo credit: Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Ri…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 29, 2022
#OTD in 1916, Woodrow Wilson signed the Naval Reserve Act, which allowed women to enlist in the Navy for the first time. By the end of 1918, over 11,000 women had joined. Photo credit: @librarycongress https://t.co/FAZHQY2SHQ #OTD in 1916, Woodrow Wilson signed the Naval Res…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 29, 2022
Early Morning Artemis I via NASA https://t.co/AaB0Fv6xoW https://t.co/tdNlqvmc2D
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 29, 2022
We love a good railroad map and this one is a beauty! Made in 1917, this map was published by the West Virginia Geological Society and shows the railroad lines running through the state. Take a closer look here: https://t.co/NZmllKuhQo https://t.co/H7z790tauq We love a good r…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 29, 2022
Today in History - August 29 https://t.co/3jOGzjCWmQ At approximately 6:10 a.m., Central Daylight Time, on August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina, a Category 4 storm packing winds of 145 m.p.h., made landfall out of the Gulf of Mexico near Buras, Louisiana, and headed north towa…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 29, 2022
Quote of the Day: "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep." - Saul Bellow
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 29, 2022
In 1921 #DC teenager Margaret Gorman was crowned as the very first Miss America... though she preferred playing marbles with her friends to competing in pageants. #DCHistory https://t.co/uTIEC6yRKr In 1921 #DC teenager Margaret Gorman was crowned as the very first Miss Ameri…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 28, 2022
Check out Art & Money by Marc Shell HC DJ 1st Edition University of Chicago Press https://t.co/8dyNcRsHRM #eBay via @eBay
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 28, 2022
Check out The Pro Graphic Novel Comic 1st Edition 2002 Ennis Connor Palmiotti Mounts https://t.co/XXdIugelJp #eBay via @eBay
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 28, 2022
59 years ago today. #MarchOnWashington #CivilRights #DCHistory https://t.co/EkbHvBu8tu 59 years ago today. #MarchOnWashington #CivilRights #DCHistory https://t.co/EkbHvBu8tu — Boundary Stones (@BoundaryStones) Aug 28, 2022
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 28, 2022
Today in History - August 28 https://t.co/EhwKdEXXw2 On August 28, 1963, one-hundred years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, approximately 200,000 to 250,000 people arrived in Washington, D.C. and peacefully marched down Constitution and Independence Avenue…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 28, 2022
Quote of the Day: "The aim of education is the knowledge, not of facts, but of values." - William Inge
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 28, 2022